Visio offers impressive benefits, ease of use and affordable pricing.

Why Microsoft Visio?

more than just save time or eliminate tedious work: It leaves the engineer free to think about the important part of the drawing, the control scheme and operations critical to safety ... This is where we want to focus our attention.

For many companies, the ability to create and manage technical drawings efficiently is often critical in their plans to become competitive, and have a direct impact on the company's bottom line. Surprisingly, many companies are still using inefficient and costly methods, While typically a new generation of Windows business applications has been implemented, technical drawing software has often lagged behind. The results is higher support costs, lower productivity and drawings that are only accessible to a few people in the organisation. The fact is, technical drawings are an invaluable resource, and should be accessible to every desktop on your organisation.

Cut the amount of time design engineers spend generating drawings and they could spend more time working with customers. That's what Johnson Controls Inc. had in mind when it began searching for a viable, simpler alternative to its CAD software. More than five years later, the company's search ended with Visio...

The real cost of CAD software.

Electrical CAD cost comparison.

When it comes to software cost, the three most important factors are initial costs, training costs and support costs. Visio offers considerable advantages in all of these key areas, and in many cases, is only one-tenth of the cost of comparable high-end CAD software. Together with Electra, it is only 25% of the initial cost of comparable solutions.

One of the most important and often overlooked cost, is the training required to ensure that the software can be used effectively in the company. Conventional CAD software typically requires specialised training, and can take 3 to 6 months to be productive. In contrast, Visio and Electra, requires a maximum of just a few days. All these translates into increased productivity, with practically negligible training and support costs.

Software

Monthly Subscription

5 Months Total

AutoCAD

$185

$925

AutoCAD Electrical

$195

$975

Electra Enterprise

$79

$395

Software

Annual Subscription

5 Years Total

AutoCAD

$1470

$7350

AutoCAD Electrical

$1575

$7875

Electra Perpetual

nil

$2098

We went from 4,000 CAD symbols in our previous CAD package down to 200 Visio SmartShapes symbols. This simplicity is driving a great deal of value. We've reduced our engineering costs significantly ... move to Visio has helped produce savings of 20 to 40 percent in engineering costs and time.

Because of the complexity of their CAD software, it was impossible for many people in the company who could have benefited from using the drawings (such as sales reps) to access them, much less to work with them. It was also hard to integrate CAD drawings into other documents...

Is Visio good enough for electrical CAD?

The following excerpts is reproduced with generous permission from Visimation Inc., founded since 1997 and provider of visual software solutions that helps organizations improve productivity, enhance communications and grow revenue. Do give them a visit at www.visimation.com and www.shapesource.com.

Myth:

Fact:

Not precise enough

Visio calculates to 12 decimal places which is precise enough for all but the most demanding uses.

Is just for flow charts and organization charts

Visio is widely used for schematic and detailed technical drawings. It is ideal for objects that are assembled into systems.

Is not for technical drawings

Visio is the most popular software for network and IT diagrams. It is widely used in the HVAC industry with leaders such as Carrier, Johnson Controls, TAC, and Siemens.

Is not compatible with other CAD systems

Visio can import and export CAD files including dxf, dwg and many others.

Is not as widely used as CAD

Visio has more total users and is very popular for IT, HVAC, Controls, Security, and other layouts of systems.

Does not have layers

Visio has layers and can import CAD layers.

Does not support large format plotters

Visio does support large plotters and a variety of paper sizes.

Produce simple line drawings

Visio can produce technical drawings with rich graphics suitable for presentations and very realistic drawings of any equipment.